Echoes
by Redaura
Summary: When Jareth looses round one, the owl that allows him to travel betwen worlds leaves him behind. And he's stuck, in that doll that Sarah has of him. All Sarah knows is things are getting creepy... Very creepy.


Echoes ****

Chapter one: Fallen

She wasn't breathless anymore; the rush of the fall had steadied her, strangely. She was completely focused on her goal - Toby. Nothing else mattered. Her focus was sharp and intense, unnaturally so. The words sprung unbidden to her lips and spoke them with the same detachment that she felt. She didn't see, didn't hear and did not feel. She only spoke.

Until she reached a blockage in her flow. It made her trip and fall, panic clawing at her stomach and stretching her lungs. Vaguely she could see the crystal sphere by her face. Glittering it was, like a far away star that was coming closer. A falling star. A fallen wish.

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And what no one knew was the Goblin King had fallen in love with the girl and had given her certain powers…

She looked at him. Really looked at him. Almost wonderingly she said it. "You have no power over me." And it echoed, and echoed and echoed... Bouncing off the floating ruins to the twisted room above. 

And as the white owl fought his way outside of her house she managed to categorise the expression that had been on his face. Despair and grief. But it lasted merely a second.

"Toby!" The stars and the landing had never ever seemed so long, nor so steep. The doors seemed to resist her efforts, but there he was rubbing his eyes drowsily. On impulse she gave him Lancelot to keep. It was a heart-tugging picture, the sweet babe with the ragged guardian of a bear. She slowly backed out of the room and switched the bright light off. The room was eerily alight, the whites glowing from the moonlight streaming in from the window, all locked and secure. 

It might have been a dream. 

Her ring was gone. Her plastic bracelet too.

She went to her room. Soft toys all in a careful order. Posters and scrape books of her mother. Signed photos of the two co-stars, Linda and Jeremy. Trinkets everywhere in a too small a room.

__

Junk! All of it! It's junk!

Aids to a distant memory. Aids to what ran away and left her. Aids to rot and dejection. It just showed how much Sarah meant to Linda. A piece of paper, a trinket box and a ring. She started with her vanity, clearing her mirror so she could see. Putting paper and plastic into unused drawers. Tomorrow she would decide what stayed and what went. She carried on, sorting through ornaments and soft toys that had seen and felt more tears than the earth open to the rain fall and had been real _there_. She would miss them. A red book hesitated in her hand, then went in the drawer to, which she shut with an air of finality.

"Sarah! We're home!" They went to bed, without disturbing her or sending her to bed. Being ignored could be good. Maybe Toby would want some of her toys and books when he was a little older. She could keep them for him. She surveyed her tidied room proudly and glanced in the mirror. 

"Sawah!" 

She gasped and spun around in the hope that he would be there, beside her bed. But he wasn't, he was just in the mirror. As where Hoggle and Sir Diddymus. She would never have made it without her friends. Toby would have been a Goblin without them.

"I need you. For some reason in my life I need you. All of you." _All of you._

"Then why didn't you say so!"

The party lasted all night, full of joy and giddiness. No one seemed to hear the boisterous celebrations of new and old friends, winning Toby back and lessons well learned. 

As party screamers and game pieces where swept off her bed she looked at the one piece of her child hood she had left out. Her Goblin King doll still standing tall on her vanity and froze. It was glaring at her with malicious intent, glinting sinisterly in the dim light. With a shudder Sarah leapt into bed and pulled the covers up over her head and shut her eyes.

In the silence she could hear the echoes.

The owl had flown out, the one that could flow between the worlds, the one that could carry ones spirit to the furthermost reaches of the Earth above. But it had left him here. He had fallen from the owls frothy back and landed, and been consumed by this thing she had modelled him off. And he was stuck. He could feel how much power he had in this block of plastic and fake leather. It was just enough to scare her.

He let his eyes glitter. He let his hate show. 

But he couldn't stop the echoes.

AN: Well, what do you think? Should I continue? I've written the last part and planned the middle so should I type it or forget it while I'm a head. (I.E. REVIEW!). Apologies for shortness. 


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